A recent post had me taking another look at different browsers. I have four currently installed (well, five, sort of, in different physical machines–maybe even seven, depending on how one want to count things), and I try to make use of them all from time to time. All the browsers I currently use to one degree or another–Opera, Chrome (and SWIron, a de-Google-tracking Chome-based browser), Firefox and Internet Exploder–are generally Good Enough for most folks’ use, but the latter three all have serious drawbacks for me for the ways I prefer to use a browser.
Chrome, Firefox and Internet Exploder install as “crippled” compared with an installation of Opera, right “out of the box” as it were. Chrome comes closest to Opera for built-in features, but close enough only if one were using the browsers to play horseshoes with hand grenades. (*heh* Metaphors are for mixing, IMO :-)) None of the three offer the kind of flexibility and customization Opera does without having to add widgets or extensions. Just look at the form-filling functions of the browsers, for one. Opera offers–right off a fresh install–more form-filling options than the others. And whether using “opera:config” or text editing ini files, Opera offers in-depth customization that’s either not possible or extremely difficult (without some form of extension added in) in the other browsers. And having offered mouse gestures, tabbed browsing and features such as Speed Dial for years before the other browsers, Opera simply does all those elements more elegantly, as is illustrated by the new, built-in, Stacked Tabs feature in Opera 11 (beta) that performs functions similar to (but again, more elegantly than) the Firefox Tab Candy extension that Mozilla is now in the process of building into FF4.
Oh, there’re more reasons why I still prefer Opera, and the new Opera 11 beta is adding to them, but apart from the security concerns I continue to have about IE and FF (FF had more security problems last year than the other three browsers combined; all eventually fixed, IIRC, but still… ), any of these four will work for most users.
Safari? Not even on my radar any more. Just not Good Enough, period. Some of the ‘nix-only browsers like Konqueror and Seamonkey? *yech!* Definitely Not Good Enough for regular use. (*heh* My first download/install on any new ‘nix machine–physical or virtual–after system updates is always Opera, usually the latest beta, despite warnings from the OSes that “down” versions are preferred for stability. So far, the Opera Software site has always selected the best version for the particular ‘nix variant I’m using, and installing has been as easy, if not easier, in recent ‘nix distros as in Windows.)
That’s how it is here at twc central. One user here uses SWIron about as often as Opera, but that’s the largest divergence from twc central’s norm, and mostly because advanced browser use just isn’t on that user’s horizon, so Chrome’s minimalist approach works pretty well in her use.
BTW, used SWIron to post this. PITA, but it works for simple things like this all right, I suppose. 🙂
Have you tried Rockmelt? Seems OK but I would like a pro’s view.
No, jon, I haven’t tried Rockmelt. I don’t have a need or a desire to “integrate Facebook, Twitter and RSS feeds”. Firstly, because I use Facebook sparingly and don’t use Twitter at all (Isn’t Twitter for twits, anyway? *heh*). And since any RSS feed I want is readily available in Opera I have no need whatsoever for a browser designed along those lines (Opera has had integrated RSS and email client for years, now, and although I’ve transitioned to Thunderbird–primarily for the handy T-Bird Portable–and still have some use for Outlook 2010 as a reference for answering some folks questions, as well as previous versions of Outlook and Outlook Express, etc., on VMs for the same reasons, I transitioned off the Opera email client several years ago)> But not only that, the quick look I took at Rockmelt showed me that it was as “crippled” in many of the features I desire that are present right “out of the box” with a standard installation of Opera (some noted in this post and others in various other posts on browsers over the years).
YMMV, of course. That’s what makes the “browser wars” almost silly, apart from security issues. Personal taste and personal browsing habits and needs will–and ought to–have a strong influence on what browser is right for you.
Call me lazy, but I just don’t give it that much thought. For web design, I generally start off using Firefox, because it works best to render my HTML, PHP, and CSS the way I mean it to be seen, then I check it and make adjustments in as many other browsers as I can.
Interesting, Mel. Opera was the first web browser to be fully CSS-compliant (Opera developers were on the CSS-development bandwagon at its inception), and Opera seems to render my blog, based on a standard WordPress template, better than FF or IE normally do (with Chrome usually right up there with Opera), but some standard html throws FF (and, this time, even Chrome) for a loop, as seen in a post I published just last night. (And yeh, yeh, I know throwing some “table” statements into the post isn’t preferred, but a. it was the easiest way to get ANY of the browsers to recognize the alignment statement on the graphics that they ALL were ignoring and b. worked better than “DIV” statements or even just a simple “center” tag preceding/closing the image. *sigh*). I hated it when browsers began ignoring img/align properties. I suppose a “p” alignment applied to the images would’ve worked, and it would’ve had the added virtue of being a shorter tag to type. Hmmm, why didn’t I try that to begin with? Maybe FF would recognize that, you think? Silly FF… Nope. The”p” tag doesn’t work to align the images to the center when viewed in FF, Chrome, Opera or IE, so I’ll stick with the “table” tag, which does work in the two better browsers, Opera and Chrome.
Thanks. I usually use Safari, Firefox and Chrome. For me they work for what I want to do. I don’t really need another but I like to try new ones.
Hehe. I don’t know, David! All I know is that at work, where we have a team of 15 very knowledgeable web developers, and build at least one site weekly, that is the number 1 rule, Firefox First! Then fix it in everything else. Well ok, the number 1 rule is to always be compliant, but you get my point.
I did notice the overlap on your sidebar in Firefox, but I’ve learned that it could be absolutely anything slightly off in your html or css, anywhere on the page, really, that can cause something like that.
I don’t know why we don’t use Opera as the browser to use while building a site. Maybe I’ll ask.
“I don’t know why we don’t use Opera as the browser to use while building a site. Maybe I’ll ask.”
Oh, I know. It’s because only the elite 5% use it. *LOL* Well, apart from on smart phones and Wiis. There, the Opera browser still pretty much dominates the field, partly because of the value-added compression and service of Opera’s webservers for smart phones (pretty much the same tech Opera Software offers for free to desktop users of slow connections with Opera Turbo, a built-in feature of h desktop browser). Heck, it’s even gained ground on iPhones. *heh*
Frankly, from what the Opera desktop team developers talk about on the DT blog, the desktop browser is primarily for testing out features for Opera Software’s moneymaker, the mobile browsing market–oh, and for developing a fan base to talk it up, I suppose. The reason I’m running the first beta of Opera 11 as my “production browser” is that over the past 15 years or so, I’ve found Opera betas to be as reliable as most other browsers’ release candidates (often more so) and definitely chock full of features, functionality and customizability lacking elsewhere. The only sites where I’ve ever had problems with rendering have been sites that were built by illiterate monkeys, relied on old versions of M$ products to build (M$ Front Page could write some really crappy html, once M$ bought out Vermeer Technologies and began tinkering with it) or used older IE builds for testing. I can’t say the same for FF. Oh, sometimes a site builder will include a particularly intrusive and stupid browser sniffer that will lock Opera out… until I tell Opera to mask itself as Internet Exploder or FF–whichever the site monkey has decided it the standard for their site. Then, Opera renders everything its given nicely (once the stupid browser sniffer, implemented by an even stupider site monkey, has been spoofed).
A side note: We (at work) do all use the firebug addon in Firefox for quickly checking code or seeing what changed code would look like without actually changing it. But i think that’s just a luxury and not at all a requirement.
Anyone who only wants their site to work in one browser really is a dumb monkey.
Indeed, Mel. But that’s one reason why I appreciate Opera’s built-in browser-sniffer-spoofer: there are still far, far too many stupid site monkeys out there. *sigh* And many of them standardized their site to “work” with an old version of Internet Exploder that was far, far less standards compliant than the nearly standards compliant IE9.
I frankly don’t care what browser folks use to view my random thoughts from the voices in my head. Most modern browsers have little problem with this standardized WordPress template (modded only by me to change the header graphic and add content to the sidebars within the template parameters. I learned several years ago that my own CSS coding was waaaay too sloppy and that I also just didn’t care enough about getting any deeper into it to want to really customize this thing. :-))
On all my *nix hard drives (and I have 7 of them) I almost exclusively use Opera. On my 3 M$ drives (2-XP, 1-95b) I use both Opera and K-Meleon. Both are equally fast and many FF extensions can be added to K-Meleon. Try it out and see what you think. It actually uses less resources than Opera!
I exclusively use Opera on all my ‘nix computers, physical and virtual. I’ve also used Opera non-exclusively on all my Windows machines since 1996 (and yes, I used to pay for it–the only browser I have ever felt worthwhile enough to pay for). I do try (and try and try) to give other browsers a fair shake–and it helps to answer users’ Qs about their browser use to have some familiarity with other browsers–but so far, I’ve not found one with the combination of power, flexibility and built-in features that can effectively compete with Opera, and with version 11, I’m more pleased–overall, two small gripes–than ever.
I’ll give K-Meleon a look-see. Thanks.
Back now. First impressions of K-Meleon: OK, but not for me. Page displays aren’t up to my standards. Current iterations of even FF and IE do better. It is a pretty fast renderer and it’s also lightweight, but it also has all the shortcomings of FF without some of its benefits (like, better page rendering :-)). I can see where it could be useful on some older machines, but then I usually just use Opera Portable (or older versions of Opera) on older machines, anyway.